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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347434">the contest</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna'>josiebelladonna</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>now it's dark [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alice in Chains, Anthrax (US Band), Bandom, Megadeth, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails (Band), Pearl Jam, Rush (Band), Soundgarden (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Competition-Set Fic, Contests, Crossover, Drama &amp; Romance, Erotica, F/M, Framing Story, Gratuitous Smut, I Wrote This In Private, Major Original Character(s), Multi, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, POV First Person, Semi-Public Sex, Sex Club, Shakespearean Comedy, Shameless Smut, Singing, Video Cameras, sex comedy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:28:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29347434</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lars is the owner of the Moon Theater, which, at one point was the hottest spot in downtown Brooklyn... quite literally, with its open mic night every Friday. Looking back on that particular summer following the pandemic which involved a controversial singing competition inspired by an incident with his fiery maitre d', he sees what all went down and how it all played out in the end for his business and ultimately, his future.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave Mustaine/Original Female Character, James Hetfield/Original Female Character, Joey Belladonna/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>now it's dark [10]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One of my "closet fics", or stories I wrote in private - so it's because of this, i'm taking my time on updating this one.<br/>It's kind of getting at the same vibe as the artist: alternate universe with a good sized ensemble congregated in a small place following the pandemic, except this one has more singing and making music. There's also the absence of a clear cut protagonist - save for maybe Lars? but that's questionable.<br/>I was inspired by the movies porky's and best in show for writing this one.<br/>Let's just say I need to get down and write something kinda sexy again, like the artist.<br/>You know. nothin' I have to think about too much 😉</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Lars? Lars!"</p><p>He picked up the key to lock the door of the club. Another day, another dollar short, and another time without the seven guys who frequented there for the hottest summer on record there in downtown Brooklyn. It was only a year ago when it all went down and yet for him, it seemed as though it had just happened. The glory golden days of the Moon Theater felt like a distant bygone memory.</p><p>He stuffed it into his coat pocket and then ran his fingers through his smooth brown hair, and then doubled back to the curb to hitch a ride with Alice.</p><p>She had rolled down the passenger window in spite of the cool autumnal breeze. The waning afternoon sun made her coffee colored skin glow. Lars hurried over to her with his hands crammed into his pockets and a smile plastered on his face. He climbed inside and kissed either side of her neck hello.</p><p>"I was wondering when you'd show up, darling," he told her in that crisp Danish accent as he strapped himself into the seat next to her.</p><p>"Oh, you know I was coming for you," she assured him as she tucked a kinked lock of jet black hair behind her ear. They got rolling towards the far end of the street so as to turn around and double back. They lived in the quietude of Long Island, away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It was quite the long ride for them, and something Lars himself never dreamed of in a million years, even after he had met Alice there in New York City just a few months before. It couldn't have come for him at a better time, given Lars had to sell his car to help refinance the place.</p><p>"It's been quite an experience at that place," he began again, "such that today rather pales in comparison."</p><p>"You always say that," Alice pointed out, "but you never actually go into detail with it."</p><p>"Well, there's a lot to it," Lars answered as they pulled up to the corner. "It's never really one to come into conversation on a regular basis, mind you, darling."</p><p>"All I know is you own a club that used to be a church and that's about it," she said. "Surely, you gotta have more than just what I know already."</p><p>"It's pretty complex," he insisted.</p><p>"I'm curious, though."</p><p>"Unless we have something beyond the trip over to Long Island, I shall be willing to tell you, darling."</p><p>Given it was the middle of September, and the day was nearing a close, the afternoon sun shone through the buildings making up the skyline there in Brooklyn. Lars reached into the glove box for his mirrored sunglasses.</p><p>"Would you like yours, too?" he offered her.</p><p>"Yes, please." Lars handed her a pair of bright mahogany sunglasses from their hiding place in the glove box. Right as she put on her glasses, she gasped. She slammed on the brakes and they came to a halt there on the pavement, about a half of a mile down the street from the onramp to the freeway, which would take them over to Long Island.</p><p>"Hooooly shit," she muttered.</p><p>"Wow," Lars remarked.</p><p>"Yeah, I've never seen it this backed up before," she added as she peered into the rear view mirror. "Usually when it is so backed up, it goes for a couple of blocks but nothing like this, though." Not a single car moved along the pavement: they were gridlocked in a sea of red brake lights before them and behind them.</p><p>"Think it's best to kill this," Alice declared, and without a single moment's hesitation, she killed the engine. Lars turned to her with an eyebrow raised behind the mirrored lenses.</p><p>"So what do you reckon we should do?" he suggested.</p><p>"What do you think?"</p><p>"You want me to tell you the full story, don't you."</p><p>"Will you? Lars, I'm dyin' here!"</p><p>"It's pretty off color, though."</p><p>"Lars, I'm a tough New York girl. There's not a lot I haven't seen."</p><p>"Bunch of sexy beasts, those guys were," he said to her.</p><p>"Well, do you mind telling me?" Alice couldn't help but chuckle. "We've got time now, Lars."</p><p>He sighed through his nose and peered out the windshield. More cars began switching off given the state of gridlock all around them: their rear brake lights faded out into the waning afternoon sun.</p><p>"Yeah, we do, don't we?" he said in a soft voice. "I guess it's best to start from the beginning and just—see where it goes from there..."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I had practically inherited the place on a whim, and by a whim, I mean on accident: I was on my way over to L'Amours because Scott had told me that I had to meet up with him about something involving his band. He specifically asked me to come on over, and so I had no idea as to what to do after that.</p><p>I had taken the bus down from the hotel room I was staying in at the time, down to the heart of Harlem, and then I took the subway the rest of the way. I got off right in the heart of Brooklyn, right in the middle of the day no less.</p><p>This was back when no one had any clue whatsoever if the virus was going to return with a vengeance like it had done in the summers before. And thus I walked about the subways and the streets of Brooklyn with my mask plastered high upon my face. I even wore sunglasses because I had no idea what things were like in the heart of the City.</p><p>I recalled stopping at the corner, right across the street from the theater, and a couple of blocks from the Brooklyn Bridge.</p><p>And if I didn't know better, I swore it was just another place awaiting renovations like most of the places there in Brooklyn. I knew the Bronx had its share of corona speakeasies awaiting renovation to become something else in the wake of the pandemic, but I had no clue about Brooklyn in particular because it just seemed so distant to me.</p><p>I walked over there from the spot on the sidewalk with the mask plastered over my face, almost right underneath my eyes, such that I found myself glancing about the street every few seconds to make sure. I was half expecting this funky looking old guy to mosey over to me and tell me that I need not wear a mask, but instead he goes, "hey, would you like to help me out run this place? I can't really do it by myself."</p><p>It was weird to see it at first given this guy was just a stranger to me, but he led me into the theater which, according to him, used to be a church. This was back when no one two fucks about churches anymore, and we were all willing to worship wherever, and so this elderly gentleman brought me inside to see for myself. I called Scott on the payphone in there and told him what was happening. He told me that there were no worries, but he wanted to see this place for himself once it was all said and done.</p><p>Apparently the old man had just bought the place but he didn't know where to start. He wanted something that he could give to his son and in turn his grandchildren. Like a final gift in the wake of hard times before he departed. He introduced himself as Len, or Leonard as I soon found out.</p><p>The inside of the theater, which he named the Moon Theater after his son and granddaughter, was big and spacious, but chilled from the concrete floor underneath us. He needed help renovating and decorating it all. He was almost way in over his head, like he had bought the church without any modicum of prior knowledge as to how to make something stylish out of it, especially given its shabby outward appearance with the heavy dark wood lining the walls. If it was still a church, I would have never guessed it because it reminded me of the restaurants you'd see in the French Quarter, the ones that are made entirely of wood and brightly colored. I saw from a distance that the place would stand out in the concrete jungle there in Brooklyn.</p><p>And hence I vowed to him that I would try my best for him.</p><p>The first thing we did was take out the remaining pews to fully open the floor. The stained glass windows, I wanted to keep in place given they could add to the theater's presence. I pictured everything from bands' performances to open mic nights to comedy skits on the stage in the middle of the floor. We had a couple of builders come in and build a bar on one side of the room, plus an extra atrium near the back and an awning over one of the corridors leading into the rest of the church to make it a little more intimate. We had the whole place repainted, too—but we kept the stained glass windows intact.</p><p>It took us a couple of weeks to carry out the whole renovation process in its entirety. Since I was still relatively new to New York City back then, I found a pair of rooms in the second level of the theater, which we both remade into bedrooms for ourselves.</p><p>Once everything was all squared away, he told me, "Lars, I want to thank you for everything. I hope the grand reopening goes well in the morning. I'll see you then."</p><p>He apparently had a heart attack that night so I was left alone with the theater for myself. He made me a shareholder and I had no means of contacting his son, so I was left in charge. It was like he saw it off before he went and he needed someone new and fresh to carry the torch next. I went to go see him, as his room was right next door to mine in the upstairs part of the building.</p><p>As I promised him, I told Scott about it and he was like, "well, jeez, Lars, you can't really do that solo. I'll come on over and help out with the reopening."</p><p>And so Scott hurried on over there to downtown Brooklyn and we unlocked the doors together, brought the place out of the shadows and the woodwork and into something shiny and new for the New Yorker kids to feel curious about, but the place was all in all mine.</p><p>I had started my own enterprise with Metallica for sure. But to run a theater, which was born out of a church in the wake of the pandemic, it looked to be a daunting task for me at first. It became my own thing to take care of.</p><p>It was still technically the Moon Theater on the deed, but I had the name "Moon" removed because the son had disappeared into thin air afterwards. And thus, it became referred to as "the theater with no name" throughout Brooklyn.</p><p>But what faced me straight on after that was what made the theater notorious. What ensued in the coming weeks was what brought the whole thing into the spotlight, not just for Brooklyn but for itself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was the grand opening of sorts come the summer time, especially by the time I had hired my maitre d' Dave in the middle of May. The snow had finally warded off and I was able to walk into the Brooklyn streets with my short sleeves and my mask on over my face with pride. I was ready for summer, and I knew the theater with no name stood there ready to be taken by force from the crowded streets. I had had a maitre d' before, a young man named Miles, but he quit about a week prior so I had to go without one for a little bit. Pulling double duties proved too much of a daunting task for me, and thus I reached out for help.</p><p>Scott had recommended him to me on a whim, much like how I inherited the theater with no name. I had known him from elsewhere once he strode into my office for an interview. I recognized his bright red waves which seemed to shine in the sunlight coming in through the window. He introduced himself as Dave, but the last name was on the tip of my tongue.</p><p>I went through the questions with him and he answered them all as if he had polished them up for a week leading up to then.</p><p>He was focused, and a little bit calculating, but I knew he would be perfect especially when he made a joke about my room being next door to there so he could hear me having sex with someone. It got a laugh out of me and a grin out of him.</p><p>"How would you like to start tomorrow?" I asked him.</p><p>"Tomorrow at what time?" he followed up.</p><p>"Whatever time you want. You're the master of the house, the maitre d'."</p><p>"Master of the house, I like that." He ran his fingers through his hair and I caught the sight of a wedding band on his right hand. He set his hand on his shoulder so I could take a better look at its narrow shape. Not a wedding band.</p><p>"Oh, you're engaged?" I asked him.</p><p>"Yep. Three months. We're getting married on the autumnal equinox, about a week after my birthday."</p><p>"Congratulations! So I assume you've gotta pay for the wedding somehow."</p><p>"Exactly! I told her 'Lana, we're going to do this—just have faith in me.' So, I wanna thank you—" He paused. "What'd you say your name was?"</p><p>"Lars."</p><p>"Lars! Thank you so much, man."</p><p>I led him back downstairs, and there was a part of me that wanted to offer him Len's old room to sleep in, but I was more than positive that he had a bed of his own to sleep in. At that point, the sun was hanging low over New York City. Business was a little slow the previous shift, but I didn't mind. I needed my maitre d' after Miles backed out the week before.</p><p>I made my way over to the bar to make sure all the glasses were clean for the next evening: we had opened in the late afternoon and went into most of the night, but we were about to close for the evening to make sure everything was in order, all of the ducks lined up in a row.</p><p>I set the clear crystal glasses on the heavy wooden bar before me when something caught my eye. On the far side of the room was a guy, this skinny young guy, reclined back on the bench against the wall. He had something big an white on his lap, and I had to take a second look at it to evern figure out what it was. He had this big fat cheesecake resting on his lap and I wondered what was going through his mind right then. He was another one who looked familiar, with his rich black curls and his sun kissed olive skin. He was thin, almost waiflike in build, but he eyed that cheesecake as though he had gotten it all for himself. This one tier cake with little puffs on the top looked bigger than his stomach!</p><p>I set down the glass on the counter behind the bar so I could pay better attention to him. He shuffled his feet underneath the bench and cracked a smile at the cake.</p><p>I thought, "this guy's gonna eat that whole cake with his hands. What the fuck?"</p><p>But the second I thought that, this little chubby woman with black hair and wrapped in a black knit shawl waltzed up to him with a pair of forks. Of course! She took a seat next to him and they dug into that cake together.</p><p>So I picked up the glass again and cleaned it off a little bit more. Every so often, I took a glimpse over at them to see how they were doing. It was just us there in that main room: Dave had gone home for the evening and I had to clean up a little bit more before clocking in and telling the two of them that we were closing.</p><p>But as I picked up a second glass for some cleaning, I caught the sound of them whispering to one another. I looked over at them to find the two of them speaking about something. I caught her call him "Joey" and then it clicked, especially once I recognized his nose and his dark lips, and also her round face and slender fingers, the latter of which were perfect for making art. It was Joey Belladonna and Hannah Ellsberg. I knew them!</p><p>Sometimes it amazed how they managed to stay together for so long and how they went so long without seeing each other. It was always hard for me to even keep a marriage intact much less make a lover out of my best friend. They were best friends from childhood so they grew up together. Went through all the dealings and nonsense that came with adolescence to become a pair of lovely young adults. Just the cutest couple with their twinning black hair and Native American heritage—although Hannah had more German blood in her in comparison to Joey's Italian roots.</p><p>They traded between taking bites of cake until they reached the halfway point: they even did that thing where she would slip a bite of cake into his mouth and he returned the favor.</p><p>They got about halfway on the cake when he let out a low whistle.</p><p>"Had enough?" she asked him.</p><p>"Maybe," he replied.</p><p>"When you're full and there's still food on the plate, do you finish it?" she asked him.</p><p>"Depends on the food, baby doll," he replied. I turned around to make it look as though I wasn't paying any attention to them, and also because I needed to check on the seed money in the register. I closed the register drawing when I heard shuffling behind me. I turned around to find they had set the remainder of the cheesecake on the bench behind them.</p><p>I watched them do it right there on the bench. He lay there on his back with his legs dangling off the side and she climbed on top of him.</p><p>Edge of the bed Amazon position.</p><p>I watched her literally fuck him sideways. He tilted his head back to show her his neck; I couldn't see her face but I could see her tits quivering and swaying around like a pair of balloons. At one point, he reached up and fondled her breasts and her belly with each and every gyration on her part.</p><p>I smirked at the sight of them, and when I watched his face contort and then relax with the sweetest orgasm, and she lifted as a result. And my smirk grew when I brought my attention to the stained glass windows over them. They were fooling around in a church, and right before the owner, and with their bellies swollen full of cheesecake. What the fuck!</p><p>She lay down over him to feel him up; I watched her shove her tongue down his throat. I could hear the soft moans and groans from the inside of their throats. I watched her stick her ass up in the air as they made out there on the bench. Fucked each other and then they made out there.</p><p>"Hey, Lars, did I leave my—" Dave stopped in place right next to the edge of the bar with his mouth agape. He then looked over at me with his eyebrows raised.</p><p>"Dude," he breathed out.</p><p>"I know, right? You just missed the home run."</p><p>"Holy fuck."</p><p>"Literally!" It made me laugh, and I had no idea what he doubled back into the building for and yet I didn't care.</p><p>All I knew was things were about to become interesting from there on out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I went to bed that night with the image of Joey and Hannah making out there on the bench on the other side of the room still on the backs of my eyelids. There was even a thought running through my mind that told me I should've recorded it for myself. It'd be like a sex tape of some sort, but I knew it was too little too late at that point. All I could do was envision for myself as I fell asleep.</p><p>I kept seeing them writhing and shifting about on top of the bench. It kept on surfacing every so often throughout the night. I got to a point where I needed to sit up in bed and draw it on something to get it out of my mind. I turned on the light next to my bed and opened the drawer next to me. There was the notepad on the bottom of the drawer, as well as a pencil, and I didn't hesitate.</p><p>It was a rough drawing given it was like three o'clock in the morning, and also because I was a little rusty on my drawing skills. But I managed to draw up Joey's black curls and Hannah's head of dark hair, as well as his thin body and her lush curves. I figured I would do the shading in the morning and thus, I set the pad down with the rough sketch on there on the bedside table and curled back underneath the covers. I woke up and the daylight streamed through the window.</p><p>I remembered I had another interview with someone that day, and so I got up early to drink down some coffee to get myself going.</p><p>He was a tall guy with long dark waves down past his shoulders, and a funky little mustache over his upper lip. He kind of resembled to Joey with his black hair and his thin, lanky stature—except Joey had a darker complexion. He introduced himself to me as Chris.</p><p>I knew him from somewhere, but he was just a regular guy to me. He volunteered to fill the position of bartender, which I needed to fill out soon enough. I was in a bit of a rush anyways, and thus I asked the questions and hired him right on the spot.</p><p>Really, I hired him right there.</p><p>“Welcome aboard,” I told him as I extended my hand for his.</p><p>“Wow, really?” He knitted his eyebrows together.</p><p>“Really, really.”</p><p>“Wow. Thank you, Lars.”</p><p>I hired him as well as Hannah who had applied for a bartender position herself. It was right there I got a better look at her bangs and her dark hair, and also her rather large chest. No wonder Joey wanted her for himself: she was voluptuous and lush. She apologized to me about making out with Joey on the bench the day before, and I promised her that it was nothing.</p><p>“You sure?” she said with a concerned look on her face. “He and I kind of totally forgot that you were standing there behind us.”</p><p>“Kind of totally?” That got a chuckle out of me.</p><p>“Kind of totally, yes. But yeah—we forgot you were there about twenty feet away.”</p><p>“Hannah, I promise you that it doesn't bother me in the least.”</p><p>“Well—thank you. By the way, I like your accent and the way you say my name.”</p><p>“That's what I get for being a Danish bastard,” I teased her.</p><p>“More like Danish pastry 'cause you're sweet,” she declared. She got me right there; there was no way I could follow up to that except shake her hand to confirm it.</p><p>It was that night that we reopened and Dave clocked in for his first shift. I couldn't hardly contain myself, especially when I strode out of the loft with that nice coat my dad gave me when I moved to New York. Dave stood on the far side of the room in a black shirt over black trousers to contrast his red hair while Chris and Hannah were both down at the bar preparing the glasses to make up all the cocktails. He had this look of concern on his face like something was weighing him down. She had tied her dark hair behind her head to accentuate her bangs and the roundness of her face: she wore her shirt to where she showed off a nice little triangle of her chest as well as a perfect little bit of cleavage.</p><p>All I could think was Joey was a lucky man to have Hannah.</p><p>But I thought of heading on down there to chat with Chris but the bar had been slammed with new patrons. The place was packed within time. I folded my arms over the wooden railing. Perhaps I would look at this whole thing as a side project to my musicianship. I had to pay my dues to Len, too.</p><p>I watched Chris and Hannah form almost a system down at the bar: she had brought in a recipe for a drink similar to a midori sour, with the vodka and the lemon and lime juices, but with some grenadine and a cherry next to the slice of lime. She called it “the Cherry Kiss” because it had the citrus flavors from the juices as well as a kiss of cherry and a subtle hint of strawberry from the grenadine.</p><p>People seemed to love it: I heard every other person asking for it. The Cherry Kiss! The Cherry Kiss! It's all so delicious and sexy and perfect for the hottest place in town at that point.</p><p>The crowd surrounded Chris and Hannah lasted about an hour and a half until their lunch break, and even prior to the first break, they were still three people deep. And then like clockwork, the patrons thinned out and the two of them clocked out for their break. Chris washed his hands and then ran his fingers through his black curls.</p><p>“Fuck, man—fucking hell,” Chris muttered to himself, but his voice carried up to the loft.</p><p>“Quite the crowd tonight!” Hannah declared. “I hope Joey shows up with that cheesecake again.”</p><p>“Why, you wanna fuck it while you fuck him?” Chris joked.</p><p>And Hannah slapped him on the shoulder with a loud “shhhh!”</p><p>I descended the stairs to my right to meet up with them to congratulate them on their first day at work.</p><p>“Fucking hell,” Chris said again. Hannah ducked back into the corridor on the other side of the bar before I could say something to her. “Fuck—”</p><p>“Chris—hey, man—watch your tongue,” I told him, which took him offguard.</p><p>“Okay, yeah, yeah, sure, Lars.”</p><p>“Slips out sometimes, I know. But still.”</p><p>“Yeah, of course.”</p><p>“But anyways—good job! You and her are quite the team down here.”</p><p>“Yeah, she's like—one of the easiest people I've ever worked with.”</p><p>Her laughter carried into the room right then. Dave sauntered over to us, and adjusted his engagement ring on his finger.</p><p>“Apparently, Joey's here,” he announced to us.</p><p>“Oh, well!” I squeaked out with my hands pressed to my hips. “I hope they can share whatever they want to share with us—because I like Joey, and I want to see him.”</p><p>“I wanna see him, too,” Chris followed up as he slung a dish towel over his shoulder.</p><p>My memory faded a little bit from there, but I still wondered where Joey and Hannah had run off to in there. They had vanished for most of her fifteen minute break, and she skidded back into the room with her hands behind her head. It took me a second to realize she was fixing her ponytail. Her lips were parted to where they resembled to a pair of ripe slices of strawberry, much like the slices on the edge of a glass of Cherry Kiss.</p><p>“Where've you been?” Chris asked her.</p><p>“The bathroom and then Joey showed up, and he offered me a slice of that cheesecake. Delicious!” She set her hands down by her sides, and I had this voice in the back in my mind saying that they had a little quickie in the bathroom after a bit of cheesecake, or perhaps the “cheesecake” this time was a metaphor for said quickie. I didn't smell any cheesecake on her breath, but then again she and Chris clocked in again.</p><p>She was a lot more focused that time, like a lot more focused. She already had her mind on the money before then, but she was even quicker at making drinks and serving them out to the next round of patrons. I watched her from the railing overhead again and it was like watching an artist paint their magnum opus. I found myself grinning at her at one point.</p><p>Around ten thirty, Joey poked his head out from the corridor.</p><p>“Hannah!” He mouthed something to her and she nodded at him. Their lunch break was coming soon, and she would be clocking out again.</p><p>I watched her for a little bit longer and then I thought about the drawing in my room. I doubled back to the room to perhaps shade in that drawing again. Indeed, I picked up the drawing from the table and I realized I didn't really have the best pencil to shade in the darkest parts of their entwined bodies. I returned to the railing again to find Hannah had already clocked out. The crowd had already thinned out again, to where Chris was alone.</p><p>“Did Hannah clock out again?” I called down to him.</p><p>“Yeah, she did. Also—yeah. She smelled like cake. She actually meant that.”</p><p>Something caught my eye and I glanced up at a few guys congregated at the end of the bar. And then another guy lined up behind them. Then another guy.</p><p>“Jesus, that queue,” I muttered to myself. I wondered what was going on in the men's room.</p><p>And then it dawned on me. Oh, Joey, you lucky, lucky bastard.</p><p>I was going to have to warn Hannah for not doing it in the bathroom again after that, but the whole thing made me laugh.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I should probably talk a little bit more about Chris because it was fascinating how he managed to wedge himself into the whole grand scheme of things. He seemed to flow so naturally with the vibe there in the club and I wondered if he would be willing to take up a promotion of sorts.</p><p>There was this guy named James who often frequented the club, and he always walked in like he was holding something underneath his shirt. I finally strode up to him, this big hulking dude with long blond hair down past his shoulders and an almost austere look upon his face, and I asked him what was under his shirt.</p><p>“It’s nothing, I swear,” I recalled him telling me. He even lifted up his shirt to show me that he had nothing there. He moseyed up to the bar and he managed to get in first in front of Chris and Hannah and he always asked for a beer.</p><p>None of that kissy drink, a glass of beer over the head.</p><p>There was another guy who often came in, a Canadian man named Geddy who always asked for a glass of wine, but I’ll get to him later.</p><p>About a week after we reopened, I strode up next to him there at the bar, right onto a stool next to him. This big guy who absolutely dwarfed me by the sheer sight alone.</p><p>“I like this place,” he told me; his voice was deep. So deep that it rattled my bones even sitting there next to him.</p><p>“I do, too—now you know why I like to run it the way I do.”</p><p>“Wait. You’re the owner of this place?”</p><p>“Indeed, I am! It’s best to let it run itself and I hang out here ‘cause I ain’t got nothing better to do at the moment.”</p><p>He laughed at me when I said that.</p><p>“That sounds so funny with your accent,” he remarked.</p><p>“It’s not often you come across a Danish cowboy, you know?” I introduced myself to him, and he asked me if I really was a Danish guy and I said yes.</p><p>“Lonely being the new guy, ain’t it?” he asked me.</p><p>“Not necessarily,” I told him, “I kind of got lucky here in the United States, but it’s been interesting here in the Big Apple.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’ll say,” he remarked, “I pretty much hitchhiked my way over here from California a couple of years ago and I’ve been kinda winging it here on the East Coast.” He took a swig and returned to me with a thoughtful look on his face.</p><p>“You doing anything later on?” he asked me. “And by later on, I mean the next day.”</p><p>“Probably nothing, really. Why... you wanna get some breakfast in the morning?” I meant that as a joke but he nodded his head in such eager fashion. I wondered about this guy, and where he came from over in the Golden State, and indeed, I could feel the connection already forming between the two of us.</p><p>“Like I said, I’ve been pretty much winging it out here,” he continued, “I haven’t really made a lot of friends, save for the dude I’ve been staying with. And I feel like he’s getting sick of me.”</p><p>“Yeah, we can do that,” I promised to him with a little grin and a thumbs up. “We can do breakfast.”</p><p>Hannah overheard the both of us, and thus she rested her arm on the edge of the counter so she showed off her cleavage to us.</p><p>“Did someone say ‘breakfast’?” she asked us.</p><p>“He and I are having breakfast together tomorrow because neither of us have anything better to do,” James quipped to her.</p><p>“That seems so quick, though,” she pointed out, “especially since you guys just met.”</p><p>“Well, you and Chris met just the other day, and you both hit it off rather well,” I pointed out.</p><p>“Well, mind you, he and I are both coworkers,” she retorted with a wag of her finger, “what works together makes for quite the kiss.”</p><p>“We ain’t kissing,” James scoffed and rolled his eyes at that.</p><p>“Maybe you should come,” I told her as James and I stared at her chest.</p><p>“I’ll come if you come first,” she retorted, and Chris, who stood right behind her, and James burst out laughing.</p><p>“Maybe you should bring darling Joseph with you, too,” I suggested.</p><p>“If he comes, too, I’ll make sure it happens simultaneously,” she teased me.</p><p>“Oh no, don’t come simultaneously,” Chris interjected as he wiped a glass down with a towel.</p><p>“What’s wrong with coming simultaneously?” Hannah demanded.</p><p>“A good question,” I said with a straight face. Chris then stood the glass up on the bar and gave his black curls a toss back from the side of his neck.</p><p>“Tell you what—if you guys come together, I’ll take a picture of it and post it on the wall so the whole entire world can see it,” he said in single breath.</p><p>“Why would you put it up on the wall?” James asked, slightly mortified.</p><p>“To show the world how utterly fucking cute the two of them look coming together,” Chris explained without batting a lash.</p><p>“Chris, what did I tell you about swearing on the job?” I told him with a wag of the finger.</p><p>“Oh, right, right—that one just kind of slipped out.”</p><p>“Fucking happens sometimes,” James cracked, which got a laugh out of me.</p><p>“Fucking happens sometimes, exactly!” I proclaimed. I figured it was best to let Chris swear a little bit given we were an adults only place that opened at night, but it was still a good habit to develop, however.</p><p>Indeed, James drank down his beer and then he went back to the place he was staying at, and I met up with him at around eight o’clock the next morning for breakfast.</p><p>I already smelled booze on his breath by the time I was dressed and prepared for an escape from the theater for a little bit. But he walked at a normal gait as we stepped out of there and onto the sidewalk outside: shadow from the theater washed over us, and I knew, even by a mere gaze on at the blue sky overhead, that the day was about to be a warm one. Joey and Hannah soon arrived: the former had his long black curls flowing behind his head like the tentacles of an octopus and dressed in a button up shirt with two buttons undone, and the latter in a black sleeveless blouse and little shorts with a little red camera in one hand.</p><p>“Is that Chris’ camera?” I chuckled.</p><p>“Indeed, it is,” she said. “Ready to take a picture of the two of us coming together.” And she handed it to me.</p><p>“Two best friends comin’ together,” said Joey, as he put his arm around her. I took a photo of them, albeit after figuring out the buttons and a slight confusion between the shutter button and the video part of the camera, as they were, and then another with her lips pressed to the side of his face.</p><p>“So where to?” James asked me.</p><p>There was that little cafe down the block from there, that cafe that’s been reconverted to an ice cream parlor, but I led the three of them there for a cup of coffee and a round of waffles. I was amazed by how much Joey could put away for himself: such a skinny, slinky man and yet managed to eat up a big fat stack of light and fluffy waffles as big as his head. Hannah actually reached over to rub his slim but obviously full belly at one point, and it made me a little bit weak at the knees.</p><p>James disappeared right before the check came, and yet he never said where he was going. So by the time Joey, Hannah and I made our way outside, we glanced at each other confused.</p><p>“Where’d he go?” Joey wondered aloud; he stifled a burp and then patted his stomach.</p><p>“Hopefully just at the theater,” I assured them. “What are you two gonna do?”</p><p>“I’m probably gonna go lay down,” Joey told me.</p><p>“I’ll probably take him to the park so he can down in the sun,” Hannah followed it up. “Besides, it’s gonna be a while before I start work tonight. You wanna give Chris back his camera, or should I?”</p><p>“You can do it, but hang tight for a second,” I told her. I made my way down the sidewalk back to the front step of the theater slash club.</p><p>I stepped inside and I saw James himself at the bar right next to a blonde woman in a pink dress. Both of them had already poured cocktails for themselves.</p><p>I didn’t know who she was but I needed to hurry on back to Joey and Hannah down the street. I ducked behind the separating wall between the bar and front door so I was almost in the kitchen, but I could hear them. Since the place used to be a church, their voices carried over to me.</p><p>Apparently, the woman was Lana, Dave’s fiancée, given she mentioned “her fiancé” twice in a row.</p><p>“I really shouldn’t be here right now,” she confessed, “but I have to say that you are something else, James.”</p><p>“Yeah, and who else?” he sputtered, to which she giggled at him. I needed to run on back to Joey and Hannah but I didn’t know if they could see me or not. I didn’t even know if they saw me come in, unless they both were already that trashed, but I had no idea.</p><p>And then I heard a little bit of rustling. I peeked around the corner to find him with his tongue inside her mouth. I needed to do something, especially when she set her hand on the side of his face to better feel him.</p><p>I watched him.</p><p>And because I was in such a hurry, I even recorded the incident with Chris’ camera given it had a video option—I believe he still has the footage, I’ll have to ask him about it the next time I see him. But after seeing it, my hope was that Dave would never suspect it for a second. I needed to hide the footage, and I was willing to hide it under the floorboards in my room if that was what it came down to.</p><p>I watched it again, and I noticed that James had quite the large set of groceries on him. How he managed to fuck Lana silly and without hurting her was beyond me. She made an awful lot of noise there under the stained glass windows that it actually struck me as to why Dave never walked in right then. It was an expectation courtesy of myself, but if he saw Joey and Hannah, then surely he would be able to witness James and Lana.</p><p>But he never did. And I was left there to record the two of them on the floor, completely shittered, and by some majestic power, they came on a simultaneous level. The drunk sloppy kisses, the slurred speech, the blurred eyes as Lana gyrated her hips over James’ pelvic region, I caught the whole act on camera.</p><p>And there was no way I could share it with anyone, especially Dave.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Getting back to Chris, this is going to be brief because it's quite abhorrent but it is in fact worth noting because it's actually kind of hilarious to me. The more I think about this, the more I wanted to tell Dave about it, but Chris and I formed a bond at that point, and there was no way I could rat him out like that. All I could think about was how Lana was right there at the bar with James, and how I held, in my hands, a brand new secret that I needed to keep barred away from the world. But at the same time, I knew it had to be let out at some point because it did not belong to me.</p><p>Literally right after I had recorded James and Lana, and I was about head on back to Joey and Hannah, Chris strode into the theater, with long curls down past his shoulders and everything.</p><p>“Hey,” he greeted me.</p><p>“Hi,” I said. He eyed the camera in my hands, and then he looked past me.</p><p>“What's going on in here?” he asked me.</p><p>“I was—just looking for you,” I told him.</p><p>“I was lookin' for you, too,” he confessed to me as he nudged a lock of hair behind his ear. “Joey and Hannah pointed out that you were in here...” He raised his gaze from me to right behind me. “...oh, hi, James.”</p><p>I turned around to find James striding towards us with a bit of extra blush in his face. He ran his fingers through his blond hair and I could only wonder where Lana had run off to from there.</p><p>“Hey,” he greeted Chris, and then he turned to me. “Hey, you. When'd you get here?”</p><p>“Just a few seconds ago,” I told him, “I was just giving Chris back his camera.” I handed the camera to Chris, who then knitted his eyebrows at me. But he shrugged and took the camera for himself. He strode out of there, and I returned to James, who showed me a big goofy grin.</p><p>Later that day, I checked in on both Chris and Hannah before they began their shifts. She was as cheery as usual, but he was rather reticent for some reason. I tried to ask him what was wrong but he brushed me off before I got a chance.</p><p>I started to wonder if he saw that video I had taken. Odds were that he did, because Lana stepped into the theater in a red dress and Chris shot her a dirty look. She took her seat there at the bar and she ordered a sandwich and a screaming orgasm—how ironic!</p><p>Chris nibbled on his bottom lip at the sound “screaming orgasm” and I could only ask questions to myself. I made my way down the stairs and I headed to the entrance of the kitchen. I could only poke my head in lest someone see me, but I watched him craft up a tuna sandwich for her. He lifted the piece of bread and beheld the sight of the tuna fish over a beautiful piece of lettuce. He licked his lips.</p><p>He spat on her sandwich. I saw it and my throat closed up, and yet it brought a giggle out of me. Chris was filled with such angst and dark desire that it was satisfying to watch before my very eyes. I had given him something that could very easily bring a demise to this place: the wife to be of the maitre d' was having an affair, and I let go and recorded it for Chris to witness for himself. And there he was, giving Lana her just desserts in the form of a tuna sandwich.</p><p>"Don't shoot the messenger," as they say.</p><p>He put the piece of bread back on top of the tuna and I ducked away from there. I could only assume that she did not taste a single part of his saliva on the tuna, and even if she did, I had hope that it came with a side of “hell to the yes” courtesy of both James and Dave.</p><p>I should mention, Alice, that you are the first person that I have told this to. There had not been a single soul I had told that incident about to, but I knew that Chris' actions following thereafter would help set the stage for what was about to come.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was this Canadian dude that often frequented the club, Geddy. He said his real name was actually Gary but he went by Geddy because that was how his mother said his name.</p><p>He, along with another gentleman named Trent, were the kind of guys who were just “there”, like they didn't really interact with anyone else at the bar, aside from themselves.</p><p>Geddy always asked for a glass of wine, and Trent asked for a cup of hooch, and they always “hung out” as the latter put it.</p><p>It struck me as a little bit odd because neither of them seemed tied down to a spouse—although James proved that no one gives a shit about that.</p><p>But I often saw them after that second week: Geddy with long feathery hair down past his shoulders and this large beak of a nose coupled with deep set eyes. Trent had real rich jet black hair, about as black as Joey's curls. Both men were slender and well built, and they dressed in all black from head to toe: Trent wore a heavy black leather jacket with a triad of buckles on one side that reminded me of Freddie Mercury's iconic white jacket. One evening, they were joined by another long haired gentleman by the name of Eddie.</p><p>I got their names from Chris after he pointed out they seemed rather frequent to the place; Eddie joined Geddy in downing a bit of wine as well.</p><p>Both of them were always seated at the far side of the bar, closer to the door. I wanted to check on them every so often, but something always came up that intervened with me doing so. It actually came to a point wherein I had to stop myself from trying to do so and I figured that well, they were wall flowers. It wasn't an ego problem but more so an issue with the fact everyone came there for a good time, and the two of them just sat there together in silence and with their drinks close to their chests. There was one night, though: Lana came into the theater, absolutely smashed and with mascara running down her face.</p><p>That was when I got a chance to run down the stairs to check on her. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, but apparently she moseyed on over to Trent and shoved her tongue down his throat. He was just some random dude to her. He was just some random dude to me.</p><p>But Lana made out with him right then and there at the bar. Eddie and Geddy both climbed to their feet to give them space. I stood on the other side of the room with a couple of other people. Chris and Hannah didn't even try to stop it from happening, even though the former knew of her endeavors with James.</p><p>I could only assume that Trent had had a fair amount to drink for himself. A cup of hooch will turn into two, and the next thing you know, you've downed the whole entire bottle. Indeed, Trent rolled her onto the floor. That hard glassy black floor that was a bitch to walk on whenever someone spilled a thing of water on accident.</p><p>They were both down and loose right then and there.</p><p>I watched him roll her over onto her chest there on the floor. She groaned so loudly that the whole room stopped. She lifted her hips up from the floor.</p><p>Trent did it doggy style with Lana right there on the floor. Geddy stood back with Chris there at the bar.</p><p>And right as all of that was going down, Eddie downed the whole bottle of wine, too! He picked up the bottle from the end of the bar and tipped the mouth of it onto his lips. He held the base of it with his free hand so as to guzzle the whole entire thing down. I had no idea how much was in there but it was a fair amount. It wasn't like a single little glass.</p><p>“I wanna fuck you silly,” Trent sang to her in this extra husky voice. “—you silly, silly animal. And give you what you deserve.”</p><p>She moaned from the feeling between her legs and also the hard feeling on her hands and knees. I looked to the right to find Chris grinning like an idiot. Hannah showed them a smirk at the sight before her.</p><p>Lana was humiliated and I loved every minute of it. It would not surprise me in the least if she even enjoyed, that is if the look of straight up, unadulterated euphoria upon her face was anything to go by. All I knew was she had to pay the price somehow, and that moment right there was only the beginning.</p><p>Moral of the story: never underestimate the quiet ones. Ever. Because they are probably the ones who will give the most away compared to the rest of us who like to talk and talk ‘til the cows come home.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anyways, onto the triggering incident.</p><p>Trent did that sort of whisper singing to Lana there on the floor, and I could hear him. He didn't even sing that loud, and yet I could hear him quite well, and thus that got me thinking about things. We were in that theater, which used to be a church. I remember looking over to the other side of the room, and the wall with the stained glass windows, which at that point needed a bit of a scrubbing because I could tell they were dirty.</p><p>I thought about the moment between James and Lana, and how the sounds they made carried all over the room. I was a ways away from them, too, and yet it sounded as though they were right there right next to me.</p><p>I had an idea.</p><p>On my day off, I scoured Brooklyn in search of a karaoke set, or at least a microphone. I could bring in my drums from my old place and I could play there on the stage part underneath the windows. Indeed, I found a microphone as well as some speakers and a rack to enhance the vocals. I set up my kit so I could be out of sight if in the chance I could play for someone.</p><p>When the place opened up for the next night, Chris and Hannah clocked in and then she pointed to it. They both wandered over to the microphone and I wondered if they could see the drum kit there, too. I watched Chris stand before the head of the mic and blew into it.</p><p>“Is this on?” His voice echoed through the room.</p><p>“Sing for me, darling,” Hannah joked in a light singsong voice. I stood there at the rail and I watched him give his black curls a toss back from his neck and shoulders. He closed his eyes. The sole light came from the bar as well as the ambient light flooding in through the stained glass behind him. He looked like a choir boy standing there.</p><p>“<em>Think of me</em>,” he sang into the microphone; he had this full deep voice with a nice smooth vibrato underneath it; “<em>think of me fondly. When we've said goodbye</em>...” Hannah clasped a hand to her chest as she recognized it.</p><p>“...<em>remember me, once in a while... please promise me you'll try.</em>” He raised his voice a little bit so it floated up towards me. “<em>When you find that once again... you long to take your heart back and be free. If you ever find a moment, spare a thought for me</em>.”</p><p>“Beautiful!” she declared. Indeed, a few people who came in right then gave him a bit of applause. Joey strolled on up to him and Chris offered him the microphone. He cleared his throat and sang it out:</p><p>“In sleep he sang to me...” His voice meanwhile was a bit higher, and yet it had a lovely timbre to it, like if Chris' voice was pitch shifted a little bit. “In dreams he came, that voice which calls to me and speaks my name. And do I dream again, for now I find... the phantom of the opera is there... inside your mind...”</p><p>“Oh my god,” Hannah gasped as she brought her hands to her mouth.</p><p>“Sexy as hell is it not?” I called out to her, to which she laughed.</p><p>But it got my creative juices going, especially when I had breakfast with Dave the next morning.</p><p>“Apparently James, Geddy, and Eddie are all singers, too,” he informed me.</p><p>“Really?” I raised my eyebrows at him.</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” he said as he picked up a bite of hash browns. “James has a nice deep powerful voice, and so does Eddie.”</p><p>“What about Mr. Canadian?”</p><p>“He's a much higher tenor than Joey. Almost girlish sounding but he's got a nice tone, though.”</p><p>Then it hit me. I downed my cup of black tea and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.</p><p>“Singing competition!” I proclaimed. He looked at me stunned.</p><p>“But there has to be some sort of catch behind it, though,” Dave pointed out. He nibbled on his bottom lip, and I could only wonder if he saw the tape.</p><p>“Like a cash prize or something...” His voice trailed off.</p><p>“True. And we just barely opened, too. But still—I have a feeling that all of this can play out to a competition of sorts.”</p><p>“Good thing to keep in mind,” he suggested. “Let's see how it all goes forth in the next few days.”</p><p>“And if all's well, ends well, we'll do it?” I asked him, and I felt my heart hammering inside my chest at the thought of it.</p><p>“Yes!” he declared, and he raised his white mug of coffee towards me. I picked up my cup of tea for a toast, and the rims clinked together in the lightest, most delicate fashion ever.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>lyrics to “think of me” and “music of the night” from phantom of the opera included 💜</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was interesting to watch, each of these selected men came up to the microphone to sing something every so often. I knew it was to test it out at first, but watching them all reinforced my idea of a singing competition.</p><p>They all had those great voices, but I knew what Dave meant by giving them time for it. I knew I had to give them some sort of direction, some sort of schedule, because it all seemed haphazard at first glimpse. Friday night had become open mic night for us all, and anything would go for all of them. And I truly mean anything.</p><p>Chris and Joey had those powerful almost crooning type voices, except the former could hit those exceptionally low notes. The latter could sing something from Journey or Boston and he would nail it. It was so weird to watch this slender brown skinned boy with long black curls down to his waist absolutely pour his heart out over “Still Lovin' You” by the Scorpions or even “Tom Sawyer” from Rush, much to Geddy's flattery given his hailing from Canada.</p><p>He always gripped onto the microphone stand down by his hip with his left hand and then held onto the actual microphone with his right hand. Chris meanwhile held onto the mic with both hands. It was such an interesting little tidbit I noticed while I sat behind the drum kit to play along for them.</p><p>I knew the songs given I picked them all out and wrote them down on a sheet of paper for them: I just needed the suggestion, almost like that of a prompt.</p><p>Referring back to “Tom Sawyer”, that was when I knew a contest was in the cards.</p><p>Joey sang it and almost in the fashion of a choir boy. I pictured him wearing a white robe down to his feet and a grail of holy water cradled in his hands while he sang in such a high lovely voice. He knew the words, too, like he never looked at the screen which displayed the lyrics. His long black curls spread across his back like a blanket and he took one step forward. The man had charisma: several people congregated before him and watched him in awe, but there were also an awful lot of people in there who seemed repulsed by him.</p><p>I liked his voice, especially with “Tom Sawyer”.</p><p>And then Chris sang it and those repulsed by Joey came closer to the stage. I noticed a lot of women congregated near his feet, too, especially when he squatted down with the microphone cradled in his hands.</p><p>And then Geddy sang it and no one knew what to think.</p><p>Eddie came up after a glass of wine and tried out “After Hours” from the Velvet Underground in this odd low croon which drew a few more women to the front of the stage as well. James and I had an interesting chemistry between us when we did “Am I Evil?” from Diamond Head, and Trent's husky voice over Johnny Cash's “Hurt” haunted me all evening.</p><p>So let me rewind a little bit: there was another guy who started coming into the theater but he never drank anything. He sat at this table on the far side of the room and ate things like chips and taquitos. He always came into the place alone, and he always just kind of sat there by himself, like he didn't talk to anyone. And it always struck me as odd, too, especially since it wasn't like he was ugly. In fact, he was a good looking guy: tall, slender, and with a head full of golden blond curls, and with bright blue eyes that always seemed to light up like diamonds when the sun through the stained glass windows hit him just right. Always wore black leather and looked like he took good care of himself.</p><p>This guy drank down a glass of club soda and then went up to the microphone following the trio of Mark Twain homages. He told me he was going to sing “Dear Prudence” from the Beatles.</p><p>I got us going. He held onto the microphone stand with both hands, his right underneath the microphone itself. He brought his lips to the head.</p><p>Trent's husky voice haunted me for a night, but this man's voice haunted me for days. It was like Joey and Chris' soul and power, combined with Eddie's odd tone, Geddy's confusion, James' chemistry with me, and Trent's snarl combined all into one cocktail. There came a point where I had to stop what I was doing for about five seconds to watch him. If I wasn't drumming, I would have stopped altogether.</p><p>Each one of them were stars in their own rite, but he was something else. He was... something different. He was in a whole other ballpark. I knew he was special when the whole room gave him a standing ovation. I rounded the kit, and strode up to him, and tapped on his shoulder.</p><p>“Dude, that was amazing!” I exclaimed. “What's your name?”</p><p>“Layne,” he said in a loud enough voice for me to hear.</p><p>“Layne—as in Penny Lane?”</p><p>“Yeah.” I turned my head to find a few women near the front of the stage chatting about him: I gazed behind them to find Hannah standing by the bar. It took me a second but I realized she was wiping away tears, to which Joey stood next to her with his arm around her.</p><p>“Is that girl over there crying?” he asked me.</p><p>“She is, my man,” I told him, and I couldn't resist the grin on my face. I guided him offstage to have a drink on me, but he turned down the offer with the caveat that he didn't drink. I assured him that it was okay, but he insisted on only having a glass of club soda.</p><p>The only drawback of the whole thing was that Dave had called in absent that evening. The theater was without its maitre d', and I wished he could have seen it himself because it would have made a much more vanilla start to the contest.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I have always seen alcohol has a truth serum of sorts: it doesn't make you do the things you don't want to do. It loosens you up and dries you out. If you've ever woken up from even a single night after where you had just one drink, you know how dry you feel. It's like you had just eaten a bunch of salt, even though you hadn't. You had just eaten a bunch of salt and did something you wanted to do but never had the will power to do so.</p><p>I mention all of this because James and I got Dave drunk one evening.</p><p>I was tipsy, but I had a little bit to drink myself, too. But the two of us were sitting at the bar with him and also Geddy, Trent, and Joey and we all got to talking about sex of all things. I thought about that tape that I took of James and Lana having sex, and I wondered if Chris got rid of it. Indeed, every so often, Chris glanced in our direction at the mention of the word “fuck”.</p><p>One thing I noticed in particular was Joey never swore once, but he was—for lack of a better word—a kinky mother fucker. He talked about having a bunch of dinner and then doing it on the side of the bed. Forget a full on dungeon with rope, black leather, and a whip like what Trent kept thinking about, we were talking about odd paraphilias like going through his stomach or worshipping his body as if he was a statue.</p><p>And yet it made Dave laugh and smile. His laugh only got louder with every glass of beer. Geddy mentioned something about doing it out in the middle of a baseball field and Chris served up another glass of wine. Soon enough, I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around to find James gesturing me to come on closer to him. We lingered at the end of the bar so we were out of earshot and so I could still hear his voice.</p><p>“What's up?” I asked him.</p><p>“I'm worried,” he confessed.</p><p>“Worried about what?”</p><p>“Chris saw the tape.”</p><p>“Wait, what? How'd you find out about the tape?”</p><p>“I saw you duck behind the bar here.” He pointed at the wall behind us.</p><p>“How'd you see me?” I asked him.</p><p>“I saw the door open and I recognized your little head of hair.”</p><p>“Well, shit. So you found the tape and then Chris saw it, too?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“So—why are you telling me this?” I demanded as I folded my arms across my chest.</p><p>“Because look at Chris and Dave right now.”</p><p>Indeed, I had to take a look over at them. All of them laughing it up after having drank down who knows how much booze in the past hour or so. Dave's face was rosy and he kept bowing his head. I could only imagine what he was like full on drunk. And then I started wondering how he even got to that point given he was the maitre d'.</p><p>I also looked over at Chris, who kept cracking jokes at them and making them all burst into laughter. I wondered if he had a drink or two himself, so that was two guys who had been drinking on the job. But it was interesting to watch, and also to think about, too.</p><p>Hannah had the night off so I wondered if she could have put a stop to it all earlier.</p><p>And then Dave said this: “We all should pay each other to have sex, like a bet or sump'n.”</p><p>“Make a bet to have the most sex or something?” Chris asked him.</p><p>“Well—” Dave hiccuped. “—you guys are all singers, right?”</p><p>And they all told him “yes.”</p><p>“What's say you guys—do a singin' competition—and the prize is fucking and a shitload of money.”</p><p>“Well, who's gonna be the lucky lady?” Joey asked him.</p><p>And it was that second I knew that Chris was a bit tipsy. I knew he kicked back a drink, but I started to wonder how many had followed that one. I knew Joey had a few, as did Geddy and Trent.</p><p>“Lana,” Chris sputtered out.</p><p>“Nah, nah, nah, nah—she's my girl, man,” Dave insisted with a bit of a slur to his speech. “We're gettin' married in a few months—she'll save it for the bachelorette party.”</p><p>“I watched a video of her sleepin' with James, dude,” he said with a wag of his finger, “I got it on my camera. I dunno where it came from, though...”</p><p>Dave gaped at him for a full minute and then he lunged for Chris' throat. Joey and Geddy clasped onto his arms to stop him right in his tracks. Some of the other patrons fell into stunned silence.</p><p>“I didn't take it!” Chris insisted. “I promise you, Dave!”</p><p>“How'd it get on there, then?” he barked.</p><p>“I dunno, I dunno, I dunno—I swear. I swear!”</p><p>Meanwhile, James and I ducked behind the wall to hide from him.</p><p>“What do we do?” he asked me.</p><p>“Hell if I know,” I confessed with a shrug. Because of the silence among the bar, Chris' voice carried over to us, even from behind the wall.</p><p>“Okay—listen to me. Dave—listen to me. Please. Listen to me. We—We'll make it up to you.”</p><p>Joey said something.</p><p>“Get back to that idea we had,” Trent added.</p><p>“The contest!” Chris exclaimed. “Yes! Let's do that.”</p><p>Dave made a noise that sounded like an angry bird and then he followed it up with this: “The loser needs to sleep with her in front of me!”</p><p>I looked over at James with my eyebrows raised. Several people clapped at that, and I knew it was only going to get hotter from that point on out.</p><p>Singing competition with the prize being a dickload of money and the loser having to humiliate Dave's fiancée right in front of him. I started to wonder what the caveats would be to it, like who would win it, besides being a good singer.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I hung out with Joey and Chris in my room the night before their parts of the contest were supposed to go down. It was a warm summer evening there in Brooklyn, and I think every single one of us were feeling the heat, too.</p><p>Joey had put his disheveled black curls up into a snug ponytail at the back of his head so I could see more of his neck. He also wore a little black shirt which all but hung off of his little body and tiny white shorts. Just this little brown boy seated up on my bed with his skinny little arms and rather large Italian hands down by his sides: he really did resemble to a little boy, come to think of it. A little baby boy who shuffled his feet on the floor underneath him, and I knew he was nervous.</p><p>Chris meanwhile had taken a seat on the other side of the room, where he had been guzzling down coffee since four in the afternoon.</p><p>I asked him why he was drinking so much coffee and at such a weird hour, and he told me it helped him cope with nerves.</p><p>“It seems counterintuitive,” he explained, “but it's what keeps me from running on downstairs for a drink.”</p><p>“If I'm honest, I kinda wanna drink myself,” Joey confessed.</p><p>“A freaking drink?” I teased him.</p><p>“A freaking drink, yes!” That brought a laugh out of him. “But—eh. I'll pass. I don't wanna be all dried out come tomorrow... all dried out and gross feeling. I wanna feel good and lush before I go out on stage and sing for everyone.”</p><p>“I just wonder how much money is going to be put up,” Chris said in a low voice.</p><p>“It'll help me a great deal,” Joey confessed as he put his hands behind his head and leaned back. He lay down on his back on my bed: his shirt lifted up so I could see a little sliver of his slim belly.</p><p>“How so?” I asked him as I took a seat on the edge of the bed right next to him.</p><p>“I'm a hick, Lars,” he said, “I'm always on the lookout for more pennies for myself. Here's a fun li'l fact 'bout me—” He raised a finger at me when he said that. “—when I made my very first penny, I taped it to my wall right above my bed.”</p><p>“So if you win this money, you can make your way throughout it all,” I followed along.</p><p>“It'll help me find a better bed for myself—I'm currently sleeping on a futon that also turns into a couch. It's better than nothing but—y'know. I'd like an actual bed. I need new clothes, too. New clothes and new shoes.”</p><p>I was stunned by the sound of that. In fact, when I thought about it, the poor man had a very limited wardrobe. He had that tiny shirt and those tiny shorts, and his shoes looked as though he had had them for a long time: even with their clean rims, the shoe strings looked as though they had been run through mud and then washed off in a half assed fashion. I even started rooting for him right there, even as Chris explained what the money would do for him.</p><p>“I'd really like a new guitar,” he said, “I have an old beat up one laying in my living room, but I'd really like one that's brand new, straight from the factory.”</p><p>“Is that all?” I knitted my eyebrows together.</p><p>“Somewhere along the way, I'll do something else with it,” he added as he brought his cup of coffee to his lips.</p><p>“And what if you lose?” Joey asked him. Chris took a swig of coffee and then set it down right next to him on the table as if he was about to throw something down.</p><p>“Bend over,” he said.</p><p>“Why?” Joey demanded, mortified.</p><p>“Just bend over. Stand up and bend over for me, pretty please.”</p><p>“Chris, I'm not bendin' over 'til you tell me why,” Joey scoffed.</p><p>“He wants to see your booty,” I joked.</p><p>“But why, though?” Joey waved his hands over him. “You think I'm gonna lose or sump'n?”</p><p>“Well, I want to make sure you've got a nice ass first,” Chris finally said, “if one of us is gonna screw with Lana, we gotta be able to have at least some ass before we can get it.”</p><p>Exasperated, Joey stood to his feet and turned to the side with his arms folded across his chest.</p><p>“No, no, no, nah, nah—bend over,” Chris insisted. Joey then stooped over and let his arms dangle down towards his feet.</p><p>“Towards me.” Joey swallowed and, with a bit of reluctance, he turned around so Chris looked on at his ass.</p><p>“Nice and round,” he remarked with a nod of his head. “Like—perfect. You've got the perfect tight ass, Joey.”</p><p>“That's what I get for playing hockey,” Joey told him.</p><p>“I should'a known.”</p><p>“You want me to look at yours?” Joey had a slight chuckle to his voice.</p><p>“If you wanna,” Chris said with a shrug. Joey stood upright to have a look for himself.</p><p>“Looks okay,” he confessed, but I knew he was uncomfortable. Or maybe he was comfortable, but he had no idea what to look for. I didn't even know what to look for, and I had looked at my own ass in the mirror a bunch of times. Chris then stood upright and faced us straight on.</p><p>“I'm not gonna lie, you guys—I feel like I'm not hot enough.”</p><p>“What's that got to do with my ass, though?” Joey asked him as he folded his arms across his chest.</p><p>“You've got a nicer ass than mine,” Chris confessed with a shrug.</p><p>“Yours looks good, though,” Joey pointed out.</p><p>“Yeah, I thought so, too,” I added. “And besides, I don't really want you to lose, either.”</p><p>“Yeah, especially after hearin' that,” Joey added.</p><p>“If you lose, you have to fuck with Lana in front of Dave,” I pressed on, “I'd hate to see your ass desecrated and humiliated like that.”</p><p>And yet even right there, even right as the words left my lips, there was a part of me that wanted Joey to win.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for being patient; i got stuck in a li'l bit of traffic 😘</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alright. Now onto the meat and potatoes. The anticipation must be killing you, my dear Alice.</p><p>I woke up that morning, bright and early. I had this fluttery feeling in my stomach that I can only sum up as the nervous feeling one gets when they're awaiting the first date, or the first round of sex for that matter. It was one of those summer mornings where you could feel the heat of the day coming in through the window: it was right around sunrise, too. I got up to whip up a pot of coffee for myself and I found Chris and Hannah were in early that morning. Joey had posted up at the bar next to Layne.</p><p>I couldn't hear what they were saying but I had a feeling. I descended the stairs and I found some papers on the wall of the corridor right in front of me. I took a few steps to the one closest to me. A bright yellow sheet of parchment with big black lettering reading:</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <b>Singing Titans Contest</b>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>Watch seven men duke it out with their vocals for money or for apple pie</b>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>Adults only—no cover charge and drinks are half off</b>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <b>ONE NIGHT ONLY!</b>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Whoever made that flyer also made who knows how many copies and plastered it all over the wall, and I could tell they were outside, too. They were bright yellow so one could see them from the street. And there was that one phrase, too: “apple pie”, perhaps to deflect confusion from the nice children who may have been walking down the street that day.</p><p>I wondered who had made these copies of that flyer and plastered them everywhere, and I wondered if Dave was alright with drinks being at half price. I nibbled on my bottom lip but I knew this was going to be something huge. I was sitting on a gold mine of sorts.</p><p>Hannah's laugh caught my ear and I doubled back to the bar to meet up with them.</p><p>Joey's brown eyes looked over at me, and Layne followed his gaze over to me.</p><p>“There he is!” the former declared.</p><p>“What's going on?” I asked them as I stood next to Joey there at the bar. “Who made all those flyers?”</p><p>“Friend of ours,” Chris quipped as he polished a pair of glasses.</p><p>“And if you're curious, Dave was on board with drinks being cheap tonight,” Hannah added.</p><p>“They're all gonna be here soon,” Layne joined in, “but the four of us were talking about how the whole thing's organized, though.”</p><p>“Prize money for the winner and the loser fucks Lana,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders.</p><p>“There's a little split dividing us now, though,” Joey confessed.</p><p>“Oh, really?”</p><p>“Not one of bad blood, though,” Layne pointed out. “A bunch of people on the streets are divvying me, Joey, Trent, and Chris into a team they're calling 'the Blue Men.'” When he said that, I thought of “blue balls.” “And Eddie, Geddy, and James are referred to as 'the Bright Ones.'”</p><p>“I'm tellin' ya, man,” Joey turned his head to him, “we gotta take advantage of that.”</p><p>“We totally should,” said Chris. “And Hannah and I should be the mods.”</p><p>“Hannah should be the mod,” I pointed out, “because—you know—you're a participant.”</p><p>He shrugged.</p><p>“Yeah, that sounds fair.”</p><p>“When is Trent getting here?” she asked them.</p><p>“Hopefully soon,” he assured her. I strode around Joey and Layne to fill out the coffee maker not just for myself but for the four of them. Joey said something and Layne burst out laughing.</p><p>“So what songs are we gonna sing?” he asked Chris and Joey. I slipped in a new filter when Hannah replied with: “well, since you guys are the blue ones, you oughta do blues songs.” I closed my eyes and I thought of those three guys singing out something bluesy and strong with their powerful voices. The very thought of Chris singing something like “Make It Rain” made my toes curl inside of my shoes.</p><p>Layne burst out laughing once again, and I shook my head and opened my eyes again to continue with the coffee maker. I closed the lid and pressed the button. They were forming a team of sorts. A coalition. And I figured that would serve to be the best thing for all of this, just so long as neither of the teams cheated on this whole thing.</p><p>One way or the other, now things were about to get interesting for that evening.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun had gone down and yet the pavement outside was still hot enough to cook eggs and steak. Hannah had put her hair up in a ponytail atop her head and she kept her shirt unbuttoned down to where she showed off a great deal of skin on her chest. Apparently, she had done a bit of walking around on the sidewalk out there prior to the doors opening. She and Joey also had a little moment in the bathroom on her break once again, but I need not mind. She was easily the best employee: her drinks sold like hotcakes and so many people came in to see her.</p><p>That was actually just my assumption, but it made sense. Hannah was a voluptuous, heavy brunette who always wore her shirts undone a little bit. A shapely chubby girl and she had Joey and Chris wrapped around her little finger. Speaking of Chris, right before the show was supposed to start, he told me he was going to take off his shirt at some point. He was the first one up, followed by Trent and then Joey.</p><p>“Do whatever makes you happy, man,” I told him as I walked with him to the stage; I kept my drum sticks tucked in my shirt pocket. I wore a button up myself because I knew I was going to get sweaty myself. I could undo my shirt and throw it out to some lucky person out in the audience. I took a seat behind the toms and took the sticks out of my pocket.</p><p>He stepped onstage first with his black curls billowing behind his head. I tapped on the snare right in front of my knee: in tune.</p><p>“Can you hear it, Chris?” I called out to him.</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” he replied over the impending buffering wall of silence around us.</p><p>He turned to the audience and all I could see was that blanket of black curls sprawled down his back.</p><p>The first of the blues men to give a performance of a blues song itself. I tapped on the snare first. He told me the song but I was going in cold. I would have to improvise. A little jazzy twist on an old Howlin' Wolf song which he wound up deciding on at the last minute. I thumped on the kick drum to get in the rhythm and Chris cleared his throat and gave his curls a toss back.</p><p>“<em>Hey—smokestack lightnin'... shinin' just like gold. Hey—why don't ya hear me cryin</em>'?” His voice filled out the whole entire room and even from behind the drum kit, I could see more and more patrons entered. I wish I could have seen his face because as we went on with it, he opened up to the audience and crooned over it. We needed a guitar and a bass player, but we painted out the song together, just between the two of us.</p><p>By the song's end, he opened up his shirt and let it fall onto the floor around him. Several people cheered out at him and the sight of his bare chest. And he had let out this vast, incredibly strong string of high notes. I'm getting chills just thinking about it, too: he belted that last verse into the microphone and if I wasn't drumming, I would have stopped what I was doing just to watch him for myself.</p><p>There was a flash of bright light out in the audience, and I wanted to see the picture for myself at one point. He gave his hair one more toss back from his shoulder with a flick of his head.</p><p>Trent soon took to the stage in a black shirt, dark fitted jeans, and big heavy black boots that went up to his knees. He held onto the microphone stand with one hand and on the actual microphone with the other hand.</p><p>A double beat on the snare that time. Trent raised his lanky arms over his head and clapped. Several people in the audience followed suit. Within a few seconds, everyone clapped along with him.</p><p>“<em>Yeah, keep your eyes on the road, and your hand upon the wheel...</em>” His husky low voice washed over all of us. It was much lower than I had originally heard before, but then again, it might have been from the contrast between the microphone and my sitting right behind him. Even right behind him, I could make out the sight of his shapely silhouette: he cocked his hips to the side a little bit to emphasis the curve of his body.</p><p>“<em>Yeah, we're goin' to the roadhouse, we're gonna have a real... a real good time!</em>”</p><p>When he raised his voice, there was a nice little grit to it. There was a part of me that wanted to hear him scream, just belt out those lyrics the same way Chris did with Howlin' Wolf. And in fact, he sort of did with the third “let it roll, baby, roll!”</p><p>He gripped onto the microphone stand with one hand and leaned over someone in the audience. Another bright flash of light. I wanted to see those photographs.</p><p>And then Joey came on stage in a little fitted black leather jacket and tight dark jeans. Layne was nowhere to be seen right then. But I wanted to hear what Joey would do for this one.</p><p>Much like Trent, he held onto the microphone stand with his left hand and the actual microphone with his right hand. His lush black curls sprawled all across his shoulders and his upper back. His slim waist looked even slimmer in the bright light.</p><p>“<em>My baby don't stand no cheating, my babe... yeah, she don't stand no cheating, my babe... yeah she don't stand no cheatin'! She don't stand none of that midnight creepin'! My babe, true little baby, my babe</em>!”</p><p>I dropped my gaze down to the edge of the stage, where I spotted Hannah standing there with her fingers on the buttons of her top. She undid the buttons, one at a time. She peeled off her top to show him her black brassiere. Joey gazed on at her and closed his eyes: I could feel his boner inside of his jeans, even from behind him. He brought his right hand to his chest to touch himself.</p><p>The way in which he said “my babe” in that lush tenor voice of his made a boner out of my own genitalia. These three men had the voices of sex: big, lush, and gorgeous to the point any one of us could throw ourselves down on the floor with another person and just go crazy like the animals we are. Crooning along to the very act of disco funking on the tiles under the stained glass. The very second he ran his fingers through his hair and tilted his head back, and showed me the side profile of his face was the second I knew things were going to heat up even more from here on out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>song lyrics used: <br/>smokestack lightnin' // howlin' wolf <br/>roadhouse blues // the doors <br/>my babe // muddy waters, little walter, and bo diddley</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Save that money, too, Lars—save it and enjoy the glory days for the time being,” Dave whispered to me at one point. “We're not gonna see anything like this ever again.” He said it to me in passing, like right as he was headed outside to his car for something. But those words were etched right into my mind from that point onward.</p><p>And needless to say, it all went horribly wrong after those few seconds. I thought for sure that, once Geddy had taken to the stage, we were going to have a clear idea as to who would win this contest. Each and every one of them were strong in their own rite and Lana's pussy looked to remain pristine for the remainder of it all. I had no idea if she was even willing to let Dave let her to one of the guys once it all came down to it, too.</p><p>But I took his word for it and I delved in the kitchen for a jar to serve as a nest egg once the next intermission came about. I knew exactly what he meant as the audience out there congregated before the stage. This could be the only time the place saw something like this. It was the kind of like that feeling you get when you stand next to someone whom you have a crush on, that kind of uneasy but strangely soft feeling you get in your belly that's both a comfort and a sign that you could lose it at any time.</p><p>I found this empty glass mayonnaise jar next to the fridge when Joey's big distinct upstate accent caught my ear.</p><p>I turned to see him and James standing in the doorway with flushed expressions on their faces.</p><p>“What's going on?” I asked them as I held the jar by the mouth.</p><p>“Lana's here,” James replied.</p><p>“Already?” I gaped at him.</p><p>“Yeah, and she's—kinda—lookin'—y'know.” Joey looked as though he had just run a mile; it was one of the few times I ever really saw a blush in that sun kissed skin of his.</p><p>“Oh, really?” I couldn't resist the smile on my face.</p><p>“Yeah, dude.” James gave his blond hair a toss. He nodded at the jar in my hand. “What'cha doin' with that?”</p><p>“I'm—” I held up the jar in front of me: the glass was spotless, as if it had never been used, but I could still pick up the faint smell of mayonnaise in there. “—I'm going to put stuff in this.”</p><p>“What kinda stuff?” Joey asked.</p><p>“Important stuff.”</p><p>Layne let out this loud shriek over the microphone in the next room and the three of us stopped right in our tracks. Joey and James gaped at each other and then they turned to me with their eyebrows raised.</p><p>“Looks like we've got our work cut out for us,” James remarked.</p><p>“It's like your voice on steroids,” I told Joey, who let out a long low whistle. I led the two of them out of there and once we reached the end of the hallway, I could see Layne had already taken to the stage. He was singing a cappella, but I could not, for the life of me, recall what song he had chosen. He threw it out to me at the last minute so I never got to learn the drum track. I turned my head to see Hannah at the bar with her blouse cradled in her arms; Joey gestured for her to come on over and she did right as someone in the audience chucked a bouquet of red roses onto the stage and it landed by Layne's feet.</p><p>“He's stunning,” she told Joey as he put his arm around her and she rested her free hand on his chest; he looked down at her silky smooth chest and that sexy bra she was wearing. I wondered how he could go through with it all given he and Hannah were together. The man sure did give his all when he stood up there and crooned out for all of us. I was in fact rooting for him after all: I wanted him to win.</p><p>Geddy breezed on over to us with that feathery brown hair streaming behind his head almost like the ears of a dog.</p><p>“I was just talking to Chris,” he said to us, “apparently, Lana is feelin' up for any of us.” Even over Layne's strong powerful crooning, I could hear the nervousness in his voice.</p><p>He was so small compared to James, who towered over the bunch of us.</p><p>“Where's Eddie, by the way?” I asked him.</p><p>“Getting a glass of wine for the both of us,” said Geddy with a smile on his face. “He told me he was going to ask Chris if he wanted one but I was solo at that point.”</p><p>Indeed, right as the words left his lips, Eddie strode over to us with a glass of rich red wine cradled in either hand. He handed the one in his right hand to Geddy and they clinked the rims of the glass together before they took a big swig in unison.</p><p>“Glad to see all of us here right now,” Eddie declared as he held the glass down by his chest.</p><p>“Not quite,” James told him.</p><p>“Oh, yeah, I saw Chris and Trent a little bit ago but I dunno what happened after that...” Eddie's voice trailed off. Hannah then turned to me just as Layne hit a huge note and several people in the audience gave him a bit of applause. Lana was there somewhere, but I had no idea where, other than the second hand words I already heard about.</p><p>“Where even is Chris?” Hannah asked aloud.</p><p>“He and Trent were going outside for something,” Geddy replied with a gesture to the side door behind us, the one that was the site of all of those bright yellow flyers. “Don't think for a smoke 'cause neither of them do—” He froze right in his tracks.</p><p>It dawned on all of us, like at the same time. James ducked away from there first, and then Geddy and Eddie followed, next Joey and Hannah, and lastly me. I was rooting for Joey, sure, but I wanted the whole thing to be fair.</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
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    <p>Of everything that happened that night, there was one thing that really stuck out to me and that was the sight of my keys on the hook next to the door. Silvery and bright, much like the sight and texture of something else that was about to hit that hot pavement out there. That hot sidewalk underneath the amber lights of the New York City streets.</p><p>Indeed, James reached the door first and I could already tell it was a sight to see. Layne's voice followed us out: the man had a huge voice. It really was much like Joey's voice but put on steroids. He could be the winner that evening and I doubted anyone would even care at that point. But the first thing I saw was Trent standing off to the side with Chris' camera in his hands. It took me a second to realize he was filming them.</p><p>Filming them for Dave to witness for himself on the night before their wedding.</p><p>Lana lay on her back on the sidewalk: the amber lights washed over her bare chest, such that her taut nipples appeared a much brighter pink than usual. The lady liked it rough, and her engagement to Dave made me wonder about it a little bit, if I absolutely must have to confess. She let out a low groan as Chris came down on her bare crotch with his mouth wide open. That mustache and that plume of hair on his chin must have tickled her around the thighs and the pussy.</p><p>She groaned again when he slipped his tongue inside.</p><p>“Hold still,” he commanded her. “Hold still!” He turned his head to Trent. “You getting this?”</p><p>“Every single second,” Trent told him with a nonchalant look on his face: in the dim light, his eyes were fixated on the back of the camera. I doubted he even saw us standing there, or perhaps he did but he never made note of it. “Every single second is gonna go out there to the open with all our voices just 'cause it's gotta.”</p><p>“Think she's horned up already, man,” Chris confessed.</p><p>“Give it to me, baby,” Lana croaked out.</p><p>“Not if you give it to me first,” he retorted as he rolled over onto his back. Trent lowered the camera to check on the filming; meanwhile, Chris looked up at me and flashed me and Hannah both a wink. And it was right then it clicked.</p><p>Trent moved in closer to them for a view of Lana climbing on top of Chris: he held the camera down to keep us out of sight. I looked over at Joey and Hannah and their arms around each other. Of course!</p><p>“Chris taking the loss like a man,” Trent announced into the camera's microphone, and Layne let out another strong note that beckoned another round of applause in there.</p><p>“It's all much ado about nothing from here on out, you know,” he said aloud. We all stood there with our mouths agape and in total silence at what we saw before us.</p><p>Winning ten thousand dollars only paled in comparison from that point onward. What we saw before us on that hot summer night was going to make it all more than worth it. Chris could horde in ten grand and the place would stay open for anyone who wanted to come in for any sort of performance.</p><p>Or it could break us—but I had my doubts about that because of everything I had just said. We earned ourselves a reputation of being a bar and a club that was sexy in every sense of the word: Chris letting Lana spank his ass and ride his dick there on the ground was the cream of the crop.</p><p>The only thing they were missing was a bit of leather and some rope. Otherwise, I knew the hot concrete underneath them and Trent with the camera and his tongue hanging out like a dog would suffice. We watched them fuck each other silly on the hot sidewalk while Trent filmed them. She gyrated so hard over him that I wondered if they could break the sidewalk down to straight up ground underneath them.</p><p>There came a point where she brought her mouth down to his dick and, even in the dim light, I could tell she was deep throating him. He let out a low velvety note at the feel of her mouth around his shaft. It took me a second to realize he was singing the song he had sang earlier but at such a soft tone that it vanished with the hot summer night and the gentle breeze.</p><p>He let out a low moan at one point. He came right in her mouth, or maybe the concrete was hurting his back.</p><p>“Oh, God—that hit the spot,” he muttered.</p><p>I don't remember what else happened after that, aside from the fact we went back inside when Layne finally came back to the loft with that bouquet in hand and he gave it to Lana complete with a kiss on the cheek. That was the last time I saw him before he disappeared into the night. She then buttoned up her brassiere and unraveled the bottom of the bouquet and took out the roses, and returned to us with them in one hand.</p><p>She handed one to Joey and gave him a kiss on the cheek. One to Trent as well as a kiss for him. The same for Eddie and then Geddy: she had to stand on her tiptoes to give James a kiss. And then one to Chris, who was still pulling his pants up to his waist: she fucked him hard out there.</p><p>And last but not least, she gave me a rose and a kiss on the cheek, and I could feel my face growing warm at the feeling.</p><p>Here was this woman, a little before her wedding night, handing out roses to the each of us and giving us the biggest fucking soul kiss of our lives.</p>
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<a name="section0016"><h2>16. epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Wow,” Alice breathed out; Lars noticed a slight blush blooming in her face.</p><p>“Yeah,” he said in a low voice.</p><p>“So, the filming spread around like crazy after that, I assume?” she asked him.</p><p>“Yeah, pretty much,” he answered. “I remember breaking out in a sweat at point because it was getting hot.”</p><p>“Chris took the fall for all of those guys...” Her voice trailed off.</p><p>“He really did. I asked him about it and he basically said he took the fall mainly for Joey because he and Hannah were madly in love with each other. But he did it for all of us, though. Even with that act in place, we had the reputation of both a sexy night club and a bunch of horny people. We have tried to get something new to soften it a bit but... let's just say I am glad that I set up a nest egg for myself.”</p><p>“So you don't think you could perhaps organize another contest?” she asked him, to which he shook his head.</p><p>“Dave and Lana got married and we haven't really met another engaged couple, let alone an engaged couple willing to let the woman be at the center of it all. So many people started seeing us as a bunch of horn dogs—yeah, even here in Brooklyn!”</p><p>Right as the words left his lips, the traffic in front of them inched ahead.</p><p>“So that's mainly why you haven't really told me about it,” she said as she touched on the gas pedal.</p><p>“Yeah, and—you know, there was just a lot to think about and go over. And there's a lot to think about with the place itself. We do have our usual crowd, for sure, but I want to go a little bit further with it, you know?”</p><p>“Carry on what's his name's legacy and everything,” she followed along; she turned the steering wheel and they merged lanes to the one in route to the freeway onramp.</p><p>“Leonard,” Lars recalled. “Although I am sure he would be happy I was able to keep the place going for a time longer.”</p><p>They hung a right and drove onto the freeway.</p><p>“Well, I hope something can help you guys transform your image,” she said.</p><p>“That has been my hope for a few months now, my dear Alice,” he confessed as he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear.</p><p>“What happened to Dave and Lana, by the way?”</p><p>“Dave and Lana settled out in California, although I am unsure as to whether they can even stay out there because the nest egg can last for so long.” They fell into silence for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Or, there's always simply dialing it back while keeping the sexiness intact. How that will possible is up to interpretation, though.”</p><p>They merged lanes and, once they straightened out, Alice leaned to the right for a light feathery kiss on the side of his neck.</p><p>“You'll always be sexy as hell to me,” she told him, and he showed her a smile.</p><p>“We all are sexy as hell, my dear. Let's keep it that way.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i was hoping to finish this one before my birthday 😉<br/>i might make some drawings for this one, i'm not sure yet - i'll keep you all posted on my instagram (badmotorartist) and my art tumblr (badgalnirvhannah) 😘😘😘</p>
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